Esmée Fairbairn Foundation: Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund

Overview

They fund places more emphasis on equitable working, supporting wellbeing and legacy planning.

They now offer core grants to single museum organisations for strategic development of their inclusive collections work; and partnership project grants for museums and community organisations working equitably with collections to achieve shared aims for inclusion.

In the case of partnership grants, they would encourage you to have this partnership in place before approaching them for an initial conversation.

Purpose and process

The Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund supports work with museum collections to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners.

They offer:

• Core grants to museums that have established strategic aims for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); and that are ready to use their collections and their funding to support social and climate justice, in ways that are relevant to local contexts and relationships.
  • To be considered for a core grant, applications from single organisations must:
    • Be for work that accelerates progress towards the established strategic aims of the applicant in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion. Applicants will describe their local context and existing relationships with community and stakeholder groups and provide evidence of strategies and plans for inclusion.
    • Work with existing collections to engage community groups, partners and/or stakeholders in prominent, democratised and/or community-led roles.
• Partnership project grants to museums and community organisations that work equitably together and share aims for DEI; with ambitious and compelling ideas for inclusive project work with collections.
  • To be considered for a partnership project grant, applications must:
    • Come from an equitable partnership between museum(s) and community organisation(s) that have developed the application together and that have an existing relationship on which to build.
    • Be for a time-limited project working with existing collections towards shared aims for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Funding Level & Notes

Grants of up to £100k over a maximum of three years are available and they expect to award around 12 grants per year in two funding rounds.

• Grants of £40,000-£100,000 over a period of up to three years.
• The grant can make up any proportion of the overall budget for your work, including the full cost of a project without match or partnership funding.
• Tell them about how you will work through the funded period:
  • Consider how you can apply the MA’s work on fair pay in museums, salary guidelines and inclusive recruitment. They expect grantees to undertake open recruitment according to an agreed job specification and description.
  • Consider how you can develop your equitable working practices, for example payment for lived experience.
  • Consider how you can support the wellbeing of staff, freelancers, volunteers, partners and participants.
  • Grant funding periods should begin within six months of the award of the grant (and must begin within 12 months). MA staff will work on an individual basis to meet your planned start date based on the needs of your work, setting funding outcomes and signing grant agreements.

What are they looking for

The fund has a twin focus on inclusion and collections.

They anticipate this will result in work that explores and influences key themes in social and climate justice, such as wellbeing, decolonisation, climate crisis, antiracism and others. Importantly, they will look for local relevance and holistic approaches from applicants, for example asking how you have decided who to work with.

They want to support a range of museums and partnerships through the fund; from those that are starting out in their participatory practice, to those that are leading change on behalf of the museum sector and working equitably with communities.

• Their requirement is that you know your direction of travel and that the work they support fits into a wider context at your organisation(s) and in the place where you operate.
• They want their funding to go to organisations where this size of investment can make the most difference.
• For core grants, they expect to fund museums where the grant is a relatively high proportion of turnover or where the museum has few other sources of core funding.
• Museums that have previously received project funding are welcome to apply again to the Communities and Collections Fund for work that builds on earlier experience.

Eligibility:

• The Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund is open to all MA institutional member museums and galleries in the United Kingdom for core or partnership grants.
• Partnership applications must include at least one MA institutional member museum partner. It is expected that the museum partner(s) will hold collections that will be used during the partnership project and that a museum partner is typically well positioned to receive and coordinate funding on behalf of the group.
• Normally they expect museum applicants, or one applicant in a partnership, to be Accredited (or formally working towards this).
• For core grants, they expect to fund smaller and medium sized museums where funding of this size can make the most long-term difference, for example as a higher proportion of turnover. National and larger museums may apply, but they expect applications to reflect their capacity to influence the sector more widely and to develop museum practice. National and larger museums are strongly advised to speak to staff at the MA prior to applying.
• Applicants must have an up-to-date safeguarding policy to protect people with whom they work

See Guidance for further details.

Find out more about the first cohort of grantees